If you are an employee, increased productivity can be the key to promotion, or to more free time. If you are a business leader, increasing the productivity of your company can improve your bottom line and help you to weather economic downturns. Either way, you should be constantly seeking to increase productivity. To do so, both employees and owners can take a look at their own work practices. In addition, business leaders can take steps to create an environment that both motivates employees and gives them the necessary tools to succeed, including technology that increases worker flexibility and eliminates wasted time.

Steps

Method1

Increasing Your Work Productivity

1

Start with yourself. If you want to increase the productivity of your business, there is no better place to start than with your own workday. Making yourself more productive will not only be a boost to your company, it will also teach you techniques that you can pass on to your employees.

2

Set deadlines and tell people about them. With open-ended tasks or projects, setting a self-imposed deadline can provide motivation to work harder. It works even better if you inform other people of your self-imposed deadline, as this will make you more accountable for sticking to it.[1]

3

Work in 90 minute intervals. Research shows that after 90 minutes, productivity begins to decline. To maximize your productivity, work in four to five 90 minute sessions, with breaks inbetween.[2]

4

Take breaks regularly. Studies show that taking short, regular breaks helps to maintain focus and to prevent a decline in performance.[3] Even briefly switching your attention to another task for a minute or two a few times an hour can help to maintain focus over the longterm.[4]

Taking a break to exercise once a day – even if this only means a brisk walk or a couple of trips up and down the stairs – will boost your productivity even more.

5

Follow the 2-minute rule. If a task comes up that you can complete in 2 minutes or less, do it immediately. It will take less time than coming back to it later, and it will provide a brief break that will make you more focused when you return to the task at hand.[5]

6

Take advantage of your commute. E-mail, to-do lists, brainstorming, and document review are great tasks to get done whenever you find yourself with “bonus” time, whether it’s during your commute or while in the waiting room at your doctor’s office.[6]

7

Commit to multiple drafts of everything. All your work product – not just writing – should be done in multiple “drafts” instead of wasting time trying to make it perfect the first time around. Hammer out something that works and have someone else look at it, or come back to it later with a fresh mind. You’ll find you can complete projects much more quickly if you do them in four or five “drafts” than if you try to get it just right the first time.

8

Handle your email more efficiently. The average worker spends 28% of his workday managing his email. That’s over 11 hours out of a 40 hour work week. To win back some of that time:[7]

Set times to check your email. Checking email seems like work, only it’s a lot easier than a lot of other work, so much so that many people check it 10 or more times an hour. That wastes time. Instead, try checking your email three times a day – when you arrive, after lunch, and before you leave. At most, check it once an hour.

Don’t use folders. It may seem organized, but it turns out that filing your emails into folders is actually a much less efficient way to find them when you need them than simply leaving them in your inbox and remembering when you received them.

Unsubscribe from mail lists. On average, 50% of the email workers receive is junk. It takes only a few seconds to delete that email, but over the course of the year, those seconds can add up to hours.

Method2

Increasing Employee Productivity

1

Apply the same productivity boosting techniques that you use. Once you’ve learned how to boost your own productivity, you can take what works for you and apply it, if possible, to your work force.

Encourage breaks. Telling your employees to take breaks may not work, so create them: celebrate birthdays, have weekly group activities, organize team lunches.

Create an email policy. If employees want an immediate response, they should call one another or visit one another’s office. Expecting email to be read immediately leads to constant email checking, which wastes time.

Set deadlines. Even for extremely long-term or open-ended projects, your employees will work with more motivation if you create goals and deadlines for them to meet along the way.

Give employees access to a gym. Having an office gym, or giving employees automatic membership to a nearby gym, can increase exercise and productivity. You can also use monthly challenges to boost participation.

2

Allow for remote work and flexible hours. It doesn’t matter where and when work gets done, so long as it gets done. Research by Gallup shows that employees who work remotely part of the time are more engaged and actually work longer hours. Give your employees the flexibility to do their work when and where they work best.[8]

3

Show appreciation for your employees. Workers who feel appreciated will be more motivated and productive. Praise employees publicly during meetings. Give spot awards. Profile employees and their work in company publications.[9] If an employee puts in extra work on a project, recognize this. If you fail to reward hard work, your employees will not work as hard.[10]

4

Create a culture of accountability. If workers are given ownership of their work and know they will receive feedback, they will work more meticulously. Accountability also means giving workers a clear sense of the direction of the company and how their work contributes to driving the company in that direction. If they feel like their work matters, rather than just being cogs in a huge machine, they will work harder.[11]

Offering economic incentives tied to clear targets is a great way to increase employee commitment and drive at all levels of your business.[12]

5

Use work teams. Working in teams can improve work product by allowing for multiple points of view. It also makes workers more conscientious, since they do not want to let down the team or appear less competent than their peers. Finally, it prevents the isolation that can leave workers feeling ignored and unimportant.[13]

6

Give your employees varied work. While most of the work each employee does will be in his or her area of expertise, doing the same thing over and over again can lead to burn out. Varying the type of work and the work setting – i.e. solo versus group – can keep tasks fresh, as well as expanding your workforce's skills and giving them a more holistic view of the company.[14]

7

Invest in training. All your employees will benefit from training, as it both makes them more valuable employees and creates a sense of indebtedness to the business, which leads to harder work. Pay particular attention to supervisors and middle managers who are just stepping into leadership roles. They are the key to transmitting upper management's vision and organizing work in an efficient manner, so extra management training for these positions will go a long way towards improving company productivity.[15]

8

Commit to improvement. To constantly increase productivity, leadership must commit to a constant process of change. This process has four parts:

Determine a baseline. If you are producing service-oriented products, what is your total revenue per hour worked? What are the base services you offer, and how much time do they typically take? If you are manufacturing, how long does it typically take to produce your product? Do you have excess input materials or inventory? What percent of your products are defective when first produced?

Identify Areas for Improvement. Maybe you want to be able to take on more work product without hiring staff. Perhaps you want to decrease the number of defective products that require reworking.

Establish a process of change and metrics of success. This process can take months or even years. You will need to test out new processes to see if they are creating improvement along the established metrics.

Adopt and Train. If a process works, you will need to train your managers first, and via them your employees to implement it.

Method3

Employing Technology

1

Purchase technology that works with a minimum of time and effort. The goal of technology is to increase efficiency and save time, so if it takes a small team of full-time employees to maintain your technology, or your staff is constantly running into problems, then it is not working for you. Opt for the solutions that take the least time and effort to set up and maintain.[16]

2

Get workers the computers they need. Old computers may save money, but seconds spent every day booting up or waiting while machines grind away can add up across your workforce. Investing in new computers not only saves time, it shows your employees that you care about giving them the best tools available. They will reward you by giving you their best work.[17]

3

Provide the technology your workers need to work wherever they are. Workers who do some of their work remotely have been shown to be more productive. Another great way to boost productivity is to work during “bonus” time such as a commute or while waiting for appointments. To take advantage of this type of work, your employees need the right technology.

Laptops – Laptops are key for allowing employees to work remotely, but only if they sync with office computers and programs.

Smart phones and tablets – They allow workers to check their email and edit documents while on the go.

Programs that sync across multiple devices – Whatever is on your worker’s desktop computers should be available on their laptops, smart phones, and tablets as well. This creates a connected, flexible workforce. If employees can only access certain programs at their desk, then you lose valuable flexibility that could let them put in more hours.

Collaborative technology – Invest in business social network software like Tibbr, Jive, and Yammer, and use communication services like Skype and Google Hangouts to keep your employees connected even when they are off site.[18]

The Cloud – Moving your business onto the cloud makes work easier to share and accessible from anywhere.[19]

4

Use virtual meeting and task tracking. Think of all the time your employees spend checking in with one another to be sure tasks have been completed, or discussing their progress in meetings. Virtual task tracking software like Flow, HiTask, Producteev and Asana allows team members to instantly update their progress on a project so that other team members can access the information from anywhere.[20] This allows for shorter meetings, less back and forth email, and thus greater efficiency.[21]

5

Have your employees use to-do list applications. These inexpensive programs, like Todoist, Wunderlist, Task, and Pocket List, allow you to prioritize your tasks based on deadlines or other parameters, thereby ensuring that projects are finished on time.[22]

6

Invest in multiple programs for specific tasks, rather than trying to do more with one program. Programs designed for specific functions, like customer relations management for instance, are much more powerful and easier to use for those tasks than more generalized programs like Excel. Boost productivity by purchasing task-specific software.[23]

Community Q&A

What are some ways that access to the internet can help improve my business?

Community Answer

1. It will expand your potential customer base. Search engines will place your website in front of a potential customer.
2. If you sell products/services online, you have a store that never closes, allowing customers 24/7 access.
3. You can use social media to attract customers and network with other businesses.
4. It's cost effective. You'll spend your time only on customers who are already interested in buying.